October

I remember the beginning of October fairly well. Then Danae had Isaac on the 8th, and some other family issues happened around that time, and Jay worked two weeks straight through with only Sundays off, and at that point it all becomes a blur. And now it's November. Not that it was all bad, but it just seems to go by so quickly.

So, first in line for my October recap is the arrival of our friend Isaac. The funniest part of when Isaac was born, to me, is that the night before Jay and Danae and Gary and I all went to dinner, and I totally predicted it. I said, "Hey Danae, this might be your last night out before the baby is born, so enjoy it!" And then we went to her house to play cards afterward, and I don't think I'll ever forget one of her contractions. She was picking up her hand and organizing her cards, and then all the sudden the contraction hit and she grabbed onto the chair for dear life. All of us, including her, were laughing afterward. That next morning when they called me a little after 4am I can't really say I was too surprised. But I was excited. It was like Christmas morning.

The whole experience in the hospital with Danae is something I won't ever forget. I was honored to get to be there and help as much as I could. And now I have the cutest nephew ever. And I wonder if it's normal, I feel like he's mine a little bit. Kinda like I feel like Kameryn is Danae's a little bit. If it's not normal, we can add it to the list of things I should talk to a shrink about.

Kameryn turned six months old this month on the 29th. Sometime in the month we started feeding Kameryn baby food, starting with carrots and sweet potatoes. She likes the carrots, but she's not too sure about the sweet potatoes. And she doesn't love the squash. But she's getting so good at it, and I can't believe how fast she's growing up.

Also during the month she's mastered sitting up by herself.

We were sitting up on the couch one night and it just seemed to click, and she's been doing it ever since, even sitting up the whole time I fed her one night while Jay was sleeping. I worry a little bit about her being such a fast learner because I'm afraid soon I'll run out of things to teach her! I know that probably sounds crazy, but it's true! In addition to sitting up she also has pretty much mastered reaching out and grabbing things that are in front of her, she gets upset when you take something away that she's been playing with, and she's teething. The sooner those teeth come through, the happier the entire Ertmann household will be. And I'd like to find the person who invented Children's Tylenol and shake their hand, because some nights would be sleepless without it!

Probably my favorite development of Kameryn's is that she's learned to give kisses. Big, wet, drool covered kisses. I love to get them, it melts my heart, but I also love to see who else she kisses. One I don't think I'll forget is when she kissed her cousin Isaac. Danae took Isaac to get his picture taken recently, and she invited Kameryn and me to come along. Angela, the photographer, put Kami and Isaac in a bean bag together with Kameryn's arm around him. She was so excited to be close to the baby, she just kept kissing him. Sometimes the kisses involved her licking the side of his face a bit, but still. Kameryn loves her cousin.

Haloween was a lot of fun. I got off work and tried to get home as quickly as I could, so of course I got caught in a ton of traffic. I could barely contain how excited I was. When I walked through the front door, though, it quickly became apparent I was the one who was looking forward to the night the most:

(I know I post a bunch of pictures of Kameryn and Jay sleeping, and it's because I love it. It's something that I'll never get tired of.)

It took some coaxing, but I got the family up and out the door. We only had two places to go; my mom's house and Jay's parents, but I was still so excited because Kameryn really knew how to rock the costume we got for her. It made her really happy, and when Kameryn is happy, it's contagious.

Plus, we met up with Danae, Gary and Isaac at my mom's. And yeah, this isn't the costume Isaac was wearing, but my computer won't upload the other one. For full Haloween details, please see Chelsee's blog! What a great slideshow!